A lazy weekend

Overall, I have very little to report.  Instead of doing a day by day
rundown, I will just touch on the highlights of the last three days and
also share a series of pictures.

Massages -
Since the last writing, Mat has had another massage.  This time, he picked the "relaxation" massage and looked like a rag-doll afterwards.  I told him I may try the Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massage and he said that he must insist that I do the relaxation massage next.
I tried it last night and he was right, it was indeed wonderful.  The best part was that she didn't hurt my calves.  See, when I get a massage from Amiee back home, she takes these subtle cues that I give her, like the raising of my finger to realize that something is too hard.
With the woman here, I am afraid that if I tell her that it is too hard, she won't go hard in other places, so I just wait it out.  It has been particularly hard for me because my calves are extremely bruised. But the relaxation massage is soft enough that she barely hurt the bruised area and mostly it just felt delicious. Tonight, mom is getting one as well.

After reconsidering our previous choice in location for our spa-day, Mat and I settled on one that was in the top 20 (of 146) from trip-adviser.  The one that we had previously chosen was 135th and had fairly poor reviews.  This one had very good reviews and the only negative remarks were that google maps had the location wrong, so everyone told how to get there in the review, and we had no problem.
We went down there today to look at the location and make an appointment.  They sat us down and served us bottled water and showed us the "menu".  They laughed as we picked out the largest package and then added more to it.  The package includes lunch and the spa sits behind a restaurant called the "suckling duck", so Mat asked if he could have duck for lunch.  They said yes but apologized that they would have to charge him a little more.  It ended up being only about $3.50 more!
They showed us the room that we will be in; it had two actual massage tables (many massages here are done on mats or beds or whatever is convenient).  There was also a giant, two person, tub in a garden area under the open sky, surrounded by a wall.  They asked when we wanted it and we said tomorrow and they said no problem.  We paid 10% and will return tomorrow for our day of pampering.

Mat got a shave/haircut today.  We need hair-care in the states with this kind of treatment:

Green School
The green school is an international school near Ubud that is focused on renewable energy and sustainability.  It has 480 students or so and about 85 of those are from the USA.  It is K-12 and designed to give kids a very interactive environment, using primarily bamboo for their building materials and solar/hydro for electricity.
We took a day-trip to the school today.  It is about 45 min away and after getting very lost in the tiny town next to the school, we showed up late.  We apparently arrived at the back entrance, as we had to walk down about 2 flights of outdoor stairs, across a river, and then up approximately 4 flights of stairs, just to get to the main level where we could pay.

Then, we had to walk back down to the River to join the tour!  Mom was annoyed that they didn't let us join the tour at the beginning and then pay when we got to the end.  She couldn't make it back down the hill, and so she waited at the top for us in the "main building".  We went back down, met the cows and pigs, heard about the english school that they offered people in the town for free, and then made our way halfway back up the stairs to one of the classrooms.

This classroom was neat, made completely out of bamboo and had a third of it set down in the ground.  The funny thing was that the rooms have no walls, and there were no walls to the lower area, but there was a door to the lower area (with no walls attached to it).

We then walked back up to the main level with a central large common building.  This three-story building seemed to be their lunch room, their library, display area, conference area, teacher lounge, etc.

The best part of it was the "bamboo forrest" where there were a few hundred hanging bamboo poles, that you could walk through making a sort of music as they clanked each other.

 We also walked past their "solar garden" which was so well hidden that we almost missed it.  It was also the chicken-pen.

Solar garden

At the end, I walked mom back down to show her the classroom, as she had rested enough.  When I had returned, Mat had made a friend, Griff, who was traveling alone through bali and was about to head into Ubud.  Mat had offered him to ride with us into town and he turned out to be quite a pleasant conversationalist.  He was in his early 30's, was from the UK but spent a lot of his life in Australia where he now lived with his girlfriend who is about to have their child.  He has to leave Australia every 3 months to renew his visa and so this trip he decided to come to Ubud, where he hadn't travelled since he was 16 and so it was practically brand-new to him again.  He seemed very easy-going and had no big plans yet except to find a place to stay and attend a massage class for a few days.  We dropped him off at the Godoh stand, letting him in on the best secret of Bali.

On a side-note, we learned today that if we pronounce godoh like godah, it is their word for "cat-call", or as Wayan put it "like when a man whistles at a woman" at which point he demonstrated the whistle, which interestingly sounds exactly like an American cat-call.  I guess some things are universal.


New Neighbors
For a bit, after a large group of Chinese tourists left, we were the only visitors.  Two days ago, we got one woman, then yesterday another woman, then today a group of four or five adults arrived.  We greeted them as they passed with their luggage and about 15 min later they came up as if to head out but stopped to see us.  We thought that they would introduce themselves or something, but instead they asked "how long are you here?"  We told them 5 more weeks, and they said "oh" disappointed, and then said that they hoped we were leaving soon so that they could have our spot (either the porch or the house, not sure).  We then had a very brief "where are you from" exchange and they left.  We have actually noticed a coldness in most of the Australians that we have met and we are not sure if it is intended that way or not.

Motor-bike ride
Mom took her first motor-bike ride to the store yesterday.  One of the staff took her there and she enjoyed it quite a bit!

The Smile Shop
There is a thrift-store here in Ubud which supports a charity that does cleft-lip surgeries (and probably others as well).  We went by there today and it was very nice.  I got several pieces of cloth, a couple souvenirs,  a nice light bath-robe for the villa (I may leave it here), some books, and a variety of other small things.  It is run mostly by volunteers and Mom made arrangements to volunteer on Tuesday afternoons and will start this week.

Odds and Ends...
We have a pair of large lizards living on our deck.  They are about 6 inches long, before their tail, and look like bearded dragons with a gecko's head (wide-eyed as if child-like).  There are a lot of little ones as well but the large ones stand out.  Below is a poor pic,  I will try to get a better picture soon, they are never there when we think of it.

Female (we think) of the pair

Made, our host, has been gone for a few days, he had a workshop for something related to hotels in Denpasar.  He said that he represents a group of local people.  He called earlier today to ask how we were.  Is mama ok?  Is boy ok?  "boy" is the endearing term for a boy River's age.

We found out today that we have been calling the male staff by the wrong names.  We knew that one was Gun (pronounced goon), but it turns out that the one we call Gun is really Octa (like oak-tuh).  Gun was the other one whose name we thought that we hadn't known.  This came up as we were debating who took mom to the store, and mom said it was Gun, but Esty said it was Octa.  To throw another wrench in it, later Gun said it was him!  So, we still don't know who took her!

Thats all I got for now.

Pictures...

Common street sign

Chicken on the road, its tail laid on its body naturally and the whole thing was maybe the size of a football.

Crepe/Pancake with banana/pineapple inside

Fried eggs, come with pancake or fried rice.  (Mat made the face)

Fruit plate, we had already started eating it, it started much prettier.

View from back of property (yoga gazebo) to our house.  Mat and I are in upstairs part, mom and River on the bottom. There is an outdoor couch, table, and bed-like thing for lounging on our porch, as well as the poolside chairs.  The woman in yellow is getting flowers from the trees for guests who are about to arrive.  The pool is deep and cool, which is nice after a long walk, but too cold for late night swim.  The "lower pool" is pretty, but we haven't been down there yet, not sure why.

These are designs in the walkways everywhere around the property.

View from our balcony, towards the yoga gazebo.  It sits on the roof of two stories of other rooms that are rented and sits next to their "restaurant" or big room that is also above the other rooms.  

Wider shot of yoga gazebo and rooms.

A lovely restaurant near the spa that we are going to tomorrow.